Joao Almeida finished safely in a group of contenders for the Giro d'Italia in Cogne, holding on to third place overall, 30 seconds behind Richard Carapas. However, the normally calm and collected Portuguese rider looked angry across the finish line.

Almeida was convinced that Pavel Sivakov of Ineos Grenadier had deliberately slammed on his brakes and sat down right in front of the finish line to increase the time gap, helping Calapaz gain a few seconds on his overall rival. In the video footage, Sivakov can be seen slowing his pace and opening the gap, but it is unclear whether he did so intentionally or was simply exhausted from the surge to the finish.

The original results showed a gap of 2 seconds, but later official results showed that the gap was less than 1 second, so all the overall contenders were given the same time.

Before learning of this, Almeida tried to take his anger out on Jai Hindley and Kalapas, but was met with a brief dismissal from both.

"We were just saying to each other how much we liked each other," Hindley joked of their exchange.

Almeida told Cycling News that he was convinced that Sivakov was probably braking to slow down and try to create a gap.

"It was tactical. His teammate braked and I took advantage of the gap," Almeida said.

"It was a two-second gap, but in the end there was nothing we could do. That's the reality."

When it was pointed out that the Giro d'Italia can be won or lost by two seconds, Almeida said: "It happens."

Sivakov quickly descended the long climb and headed to the Ineos Grenadiers team bus for the long trip to Salo for a rest day.

Cycling News asked Richard Kalapas about the incident after the stage, but he finished ahead of Sivakov.

"I was in front and didn't see anything," the Ecuadorian told Cycling News.

Kalapas won the maglia rosa and will have a third rest day on Monday and a final week in the mountains. He leads Hindley by just 7 seconds, with Almeida in third at 30 seconds and Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) in fourth at 59 seconds.

The mountain stages continue, with a mountain finish in Marmolada on Saturday and a 17.4km time trial around Verona on the final Sunday, where every second counts in the battle for the overall win.

With the hard racing continuing, and with so much racing already done, including a stage around Turin on Saturday, all of the overall contenders had a low-key race on Sunday to Cogne in the northwestern Val d'Aosta region.

Ineos Grenadiers controlled the peloton as the break of the day formed, and at one point only UAE Team Emirates took over.

"I think everyone was a little tired after yesterday. We were in a small group at the finish, but it was a good day," Almeida explained.

"If I was feeling good, I wanted to accelerate on the second climb. I was okay, but my teammates were struggling a bit, so I decided to go steady. We still had the last climb to go and there are still a lot of climbs next week."